Adventures in T-shirt land:from the workbench

I recently sent out an order to the owner of ISLAND GIRL in Catalina, California. I hope she loves her shirts and they sell well in her store.

I sent her 15 of these, three in each size, and matching arm warmers.

I also thought this would be an awesome Item for her next order:

My thought was that the wings would actually be in burn out, not silver and the shirt would be a light blue. It isn't a totally random suggestion, she has expressed interest both in wings and in the skully heart design.

I am hoping to also get another new wholesale account, it is for a store that specializes in Roller Derby merchandise! I think it would be really fun!

This is my new design of the week, both are brand new screens. The skully heart art is not new, just the screen. This screen is a little smaller than the other one and the colors are inverted.... Right now I have a bunch of screens I want to burn.

I want to do a smaller set of wings for onesies and children's shirts, as well as some text to go on the front. I also want to reburn a few screens that have very fine lines and are hard to print. I think I should invert more designs, especially some of the ones with VERY fine lines, like my revolver screen, and for new art I plan on drawing a dinosaur. lately that has seemed very important.

and something else that is VERY VERY IMPORTANT:

Pictures of my lovely daughter Autumn. She is turning 2 this weekend!

I promised her she could watch a cartoon or two if she let me finish this post, so I guess it is time to turn the computer over to her for a little while... besides, I have 8 dresses that are VERY quickly approaching deadlines.

See you soon!

♥Erica

Adventures in T-shirt land: Thoughts from the workbench

SO,

One thing I have learned about my two year old, is that it is usually easier to let her make a mess and clean it up later than try to distract her with her own toys, which would also make a mess if she was interested, but she usually isn't interested in her own toys.

This was the case today . I received a package with some fabric in it and she really took to a fabric with anchors on it and ran around the house in her diaper playing with it. I got some striped fabric from www.etsy.com/shop/christiecottage that I think will look awesome with it. I also took down my tub of buttons and let her play with that... which she really enjoyed, and I am not looking forward to cleaning later.

speaking of Autumn, I got to make some cute things for her as well this week.

It started with a package of onesies that was marked 18 months but actually had 24 month onesies in it. So, someone ordered an 18 month onesie, I made a 24 month onesie, and was lucky enough to catch it before shipping the wrong size. Autumn is almost 2 and can wear a 24 month onesie, but I prefer onesies so I cut off the bottom and surged the edge to make a tee shirt. Way cute. I liked it so much that I made another one.

Autumn has food on her forehead, and moments after this photo it was all over her shirt, too... and I am not sure if you noticed, but that was the screen from the picture I put up yesterday, and of course, here is my first shirt with that screen:

Which is available now in my shop.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/59508212/wind-up-bird-tee-hand-dyed-and-printed

Now for something exciting! I just ordered a chemical. What it does is remove natural materials when you put it on your fabric and heat set it. I have been having a very difficult time finding burnout fabric like I use for my featherweight scarves, so difficult that I have actually removed many of them from my store because I wont be able to make them if someone orders them. This chemical removes natural materials from fabric and leaves the man made materials, so ideally, with a cotton poly blend fabric I will be able to make my own burnout material. I also realized that I can probably screen print my designs with this stuff... and that means I can burnout my designs instead of only printing them with ink... and that is pretty cool...

See you all later!

♥Erica

Coming Soon to Acrylic and Steel

Sorry I missed my daily treasury last night, I fainted, so I decided to go to sleep. I have been feeling dizzy and faint (all part of the same yuck I have been feeling for months) and I know I NEED to go see urgent care, but these things are not interfering with my life enough for me to want to take the time to go.

I am going to be listing some coasters soon in Acrylic and Steel. This store has not been getting the attention Caustic Threads gets. I did finally list Adam's new knives and all of those bearing necklaces, and I need to list some art prints as well.

This is a new product that I am excited about:

Coasters!

These are unfinished, I still need to put the felt base on them.

These two are done.

When I was making these I learned that "fast drying" spry on polyurethane still takes about 6 hours to dry. Oh well.

so, what else?

Well, things have been busy, I need to figure out the best way to photograph the skirts I made. I also bought a whole bunch of rit fabric dye. My previous (and first) order with Next Level Apparel was cancelled due to stock levels. Then I dreamed up this Idea of dying shirts myself, and now I have a pretty big order of plain white shirts to place, and the best part is that I can also dye fabric, baby body suits, and whatever else strikes my fancy.

I have still been unwell, as mentioned earlier. It feels kind of like what I think it would feel like to have a brain tumor or parasites. It doesn't hurt, but a few times an hour, even when I am sitting still I get the spins, feel faint, and then cant remember what I was doing. It's like I have a brain chip and someone hit the reset button.

Roller derby is what it is. We are trying to decide if we want to go to regionals. We are ranked high enough, but we are not sure we have enough skaters to play 3 games in two days. I didn't want to go because I want to have another baby. My Birth Control prescription expired recently so I am not renewing it. As long as I am not pregnant I am happy to go if we have enough people.

Well-

Until next time♥

xoxo

Erica

Small Changes

I recently decided to purchase a showcase spot for Caustic Threads, which has made me take a long hard look at my store. If I am going to spend a little extra money advertising I really want to make sure I am presenting my product in a desirable way. Several people told me that they did not like my banner, it was too dark, boring, text gets lost. At first I felt a little sad but that was dumb. People were just trying to help me be successful. I also had several people tell me that they LIKED my avatar, but since I don't like aspects about it I decided to change that too. It looks too pixalated or something.

Here is my old Banner and Avi:




And this is my new banner and Avi:




Any thoughts or suggestions?



I Loved these silly pictures so I couldn't help using at least one of them:



I still have a lot of work to do, I am trying to make the first image for all of my listings similar so that my store has a nice clean look. There are some Items that I cant do that with, and there will be more as I continue to add accessories from my other store, but I have a pretty good Idea of what I am going for. Unfortunately this means I have to re-take a lot of pictures. I am also working on new cards and a few custom projects.

I guess I know how I will be spending my long weekend...

Xoxo,
Erica

Just a Quick note...

I hope everyone had an excellent mothers day! I did! I was going to talk to you all about my mothers day, but the pictures didn't upload and then I had to leave for work.

So, I am not really sure want to write about.


Hmmm... I received some new screens in the mail on Saturday. I really LOVE PhotoEZ screen printing paper. It is fast and easy. I have already used up 7 of the 10 new screens I bought, so I am already ready to buy more. It seems like Ideas have been unlimited lately and I really wish I had the time and the funds to make even more! I am so glad I started this new hobby.

I really think I could quit my day job if I wanted to and make as much as I am working part time. Not that I am doing REALLY well but I am definitely doing OK in both stores. Of course it is nice for Autumn and I to get out of the house every day, and I like being able to see my dad every day, too.

I have been thinking about printing on things as wall art to put in acrylic and steel but I have not had a chance to yet, and i am not sure if anyone would be interested in that sort of a thing.
I am putting together a color feature for tomorrow or Thursday. If you have any green or pink items, or green and pink items or happen to see any really great green and pink items please post them in the comments or send me an email and I will try to include them in my feature.

Ok, I hope everyone is doing well, I miss being able to read every ones blogs every day, but I want you all to know you are in my thoughts.

Xoxo
♥Erica